Mysterious Glow

Warning: This post has the disadvantage of being narcissistic and geeky at the same time. Read at your peril.

I was amused by an internet test I found at kevinhaw.com. He figured out a way to quantify what a person’s real life abilities would be in terms of Dungeons and Dragons. If you’ve never played before, D&D had various scores, the higher the better, such as Strength and Intelligence. I always wanted to know what my real life score would be. I believe World of Warcraft does the same thing, but I’ve never played an online game like that.

I’ve taken other D&D quizzes before and answered questions. Turns out the internet thinks my “alignment” or moral compass is Chaotic Neutral, which is pretty much a sociopath. I disagree with that, but I think I agree with Kevin Haw’s quiz. Let’s take a closer look!

The stats go as follows. Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma.

The first score is Strength. I’m a little shy at telling the world what my bench and military press is, but here it is for the world to see.

I think this is a decent bench press and military press. Okay? My ego forces me to point out that I could do more on a machine, but with a real, full-on free weight press I would only get slightly above average in D&D terms. This means I would make a piss-poor Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger — really anyone that beats the shit out of a people.

Since I only have an Associates Degree, the test decided I was Forrest Gump material in terms of Intelligence. My Wisdom is very high, according to the test. I like to read philosophy, have a near-photographic memory for ephemera and I understand that gambling is a great way to lose your shirt. With those two scores, I sound smart, but nothing to write home about.

But my Dexterity or kinesiological sense and fine motor skills are pretty decent. I’ve never been a basketball player, which would have helped my scores, but I was glad to see this next question. Never been able to shower five juggling balls, and everytime I see people do that, I get a narcissistic injury.

Happy to say that I got a high score on Charisma, or personal magnetism. It asked me embarrassing questions on whether the opposite sex digs me or not. I think they do, but maybe not after reading this post. This question lowered my score:

So take the test yourself!

My enthusiasm for Caprica hasn’t waned. I still see great potential in this series. It might even be more weepy than Battlestar Galactica, which I didn’t think possible. Just like BSG, Caprica is going to be a heavy adult drama that just happens to be SyFy.

I’m really enjoying the cityscape of Caprica, which is really becoming a non-speaking character of the show. The city is not very “science fiction-y” with Jetsons vehicles whizzing about. I’m hoping they explore more of the character of the city. Things like culture, fashion and trends. It shouldn’t just be only Tolkein-style fantasies that get to have complete “world creation.”

Mild Spoiler Alert.

I’m already skeeved-out by the Polly Walker character and her cohorts. Last night’s episode it was revealed that she is part of collective, extended family of polygamist hippy Mormons with ties to religious terrorism. They are all too happy to have teenage girls over for dinner. Maybe good material to help raise all those children running around.

Great histrionic freak out with Dr. Amanda Graystone tearfully telling the entire world that her daughter was a terrorist. That didn’t go over very well.

I’m ready for the Zoe-trapped-inside-a-Cylon story arc to wrap up. Although it might be interesting to see more fly-on-the-wall moments with her parents, the Graystones.

I love that the Taurans have a Sicilian, La Costra Nostra style mafia and that the Adama family is struggling to assimilate into Caprican culture. Since Caprica is a prequel of Battlestar Galactica, some of the tension of wondering if the young Bill Adama will go the way of the gang lifestyle is undercut. He doesn’t. He becomes Admiral of the Colonial Fleet for frak’s sake. But I like the unethical uncle teaching Bill street crimes.

I probably won’t see this, as I generally don’t like pointless remakes, but I really dig these agitprop posters for the new Red Dawn movie that will be coming out later this year.

Say what you will about the Soviets — millions dead, people reduced to a bleak existence, the very worst in industrial and environmental damage — they knew how to make some kick-ass posters.

Remaking Red Dawn sounds like a real silly idea. Red Dawn is a complete product of Reagan-era Cold War politics. But idea-bankrupt Hollywood has to remake the movie, so this time it’s Chinese that take over America. They’re Commies, right? Sort of… Never mind that China depends heavily on America to buy all of its products. The very last thing China would want is to start a Glorious Revolution of the Proletariat and Victory over Bourgeois Oppressors and Enemies of Socialism in the United States.

Saw the Pogues last night. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen. The opening act was awesome. Nashville guitaritst, Justin Townes Earl, Steve Earle’s kid, played some awesome honkytonk guitar as well as Woody Guthrie style folk songs. He was able to create such a sound with a single acoustic guitar, no effects, that I watched it all with my jaw dropped.

When the Pogues hit the stage, Shane MacGowan had to remind us, “Hey! You’re the town that killed JFK!”* Even though that is a sensitive subjects to we Dallas-ites, I forgive him. I’m convinced that my town has no other history than that. He also violated the strict no-smoking policy of House of Blues, by lighting up a cigarette, but Shane only breathes smoke and not oxygen like your or I. It would have been nice to have subtitles on a video screen, like you see at the opera, because I couldn’t understand a word Shane MacGowan says even if he were stone-cold sober, which he wasn’t.

The band was incredibly tight. I think the line-up was the same as If I Should Fall From Grace With God, which might be my favorite Pogues album. Shane was not too drunk. I was happy with the songs they played, although it would have been nice to hear Fairytale of New York, but maybe that is a Christmas song.

Chris and I were going so bezerk, that we probably should have been in General Admission. Maybe next time, but I suspect there won’t be a next time. The last time the Pogues played in Dallas was twenty years ago.

After the show, Chris and I were going down the stairs, to get out the place. A guy stared at us and said something. I couldn’t hear, so I thought he asked if we liked the show or something. I gave him the “okay” symbol my hands and said, “It was great!”

Chris later said the guy was saying, “Padres…Padres.” That is not even a real slang word. I guess I could imagine someone calling a guy “Padre” but it would be stupid to call my wife a “Father”. In his defense, we were wearing black — but only because we’re cool, — and not because we were entering seminary school.

Perhaps he was looking for someone to confess to and absolve him of sin. If I would have known that I would have given him a quick In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti , ask him if he had Jesus in his heart, touch his private parts, and then send him on his way. Can’t be that difficult to be a priest.

* I would make the case that Dallas isn’t responsible for killing JFK. I won’t get into conspiracy theory, but for sake of argument, let’s say that Lee Harvey Oswald killed the President. He wasn’t fucking from here, ok? He was from Louisiana, so everyone should be mad at them. Horrible Lousianananans. A terrible bunch.

From Metafilter, Oct. 26:

“I am only ashamed that I waited this many months to act. I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.” In a blistering letter that calls out some church lies, "Crash" director Paul Haggis quits Scientology after 35 years over its support for Prop 8. He says he was also influenced by this acclaimed St Pete Times series. The high level defection comes as ABC began running a multipart expose of the church that included choice video of Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis storming off when asked about the alien lord Xenu.

My comments: It’s hard not to notice the tactic that Scientology spokesman, Tommy Davis, is using. When confronted with their own absurdity, religions have learned to say Oh! I am SOOOO offended. That cuts me to my very soul. I can’t believe you asked me that? I wouldn’t be surprised if Scientology petitions the United Nations to denounce any questions on the Galactic Lord Xenu as blasphemous. Another religion, much more popular than Scientology, is doing similar things on the world stage to stifle criticism.

I recently watched the film Wrong Turn 2. It’s a tasteless and ugly movie about murderous inbred cannibalistic hillbillies. It is so gross, that it almost put me off my dinner. Wrong Turn 2 is a sequel – obviously– to a film I haven’t seen. But I wasn’t lost in its complexities. There a lot of movies like this.

Ya’ll listen up now. This here is some real homespun cultural anthropology and film criticism. I think movies like The Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the recent Scottish film, Doomsday, are explorations of long held xenophobia and fear of the Other. Country people’s ways and habits are demonized into something grotesque. Cannibalism and incest are worldwide taboos, but horror films would have us believe that rural people are just this close to reverting to a primitive atavistic existence.

A similar demonization of the Other can be seen in the various blood libels that people accuse each other of participating in. It was common to accuse Jews, different denominations of Christianity, gypsies, American Indians, et al. of cannibalism and using the blood of children for mysterious rites. In the 1980s, the United States went through the so-called Satanic Panic, and these weird stories of infanticide and cannibalism crept up again. Thank goodness that human beings don’t do these kind of things.

The first story I can think of that is about rural, inbred savages, is the myth of Scottish murderer Sawney Bean, who with his murderous family, kidnapped and ate travelers. This legend inspired Wes Craven to write an American version, The Hills Have Eyes. His inbred hillbillies got that way from atomic testing. I think Sawney Bean got that way from being Scottish.

Deliverance and the very brutal Belgian film, Calvaire, – which is about Belgium hillbillies if you can believe such a thing – are not about incest, but other sexual taboos. These films are a demonization of rural life, which is depicted as nasty and crude, as opposed to civilization, which is clean and warm.

I think the Jerry Springer show plays on society’s fears of rural white people. It is a form of this Hick Horror. A lot of the participants on that show are out-and-out frauds, but nevertheless Jerry Springer will parade some redneck type out and ask him why he is here. “Well Jerry, it’s like this. For the past couple of months, I’ve been sleeping with my sister.” The crowd erupts in jeers, and the redneck guy, who will lose his shirt by the end of the show, will get up and scream back, “Ya’ll don’t know me!”

Fear of the Other is not just limited to country areas. The evil actions in the H.P. Lovecraft short story, The Horror at Red Hook, are caused entirely by immigrants and their strange culture. Lovecraft, who was a frail, tweedy intellectual, describes Italian and other immigrants in frightening tones, he must have been clearly afraid of them in life. China Miéville, who is a brilliant writer, talks briefly about Lovecraft’s “fever dream of prejudice” in this small clip. Note: Are you reading China Miéville? If not, then what the hell is wrong with you?

William Faulkner’s Southern family, The Snopes, are terrible people, but they never started eating people. It is time for horror and suspense writers of movies and books, to stop using “inbred cannibalistic hillbillies” as a trope. I quite like rural people and if these writers would take the time to talk to these Others, they wouldn’t seem so scary.

This weekend we went to Cross Plains, Texas, to visit the home of one of Texas’ most famous authors, Robert E. Howard. Howard is most famous for his character, Conan the Barbarian. Bow-hunting season had just opened up, and most of the locals were dressed head-to-toe in camouflage.

He was a young writer. At the time of his suicide, he was only a mere thirty years old. One of the reasons I wanted to make this trip is to explore a bit of Cross Plains and to see what influence that had on him. Just as in Howard’s time, there really isn’t much out there. In the Depression-era, I imagine it would be even duller. There is nothing about the landscape, which is really beautiful, that would give rise to the blood and thunder of Conan, Kull, Red Sonja and Solomon Kane. I could see someone trying to do another Leaves of Grass here, but not Conan.

Talking to the Robert E. Hoard Museum curator, who was a charming elderly woman who was just a little girl during R.E. Howard’s life, I still get the sense that the people of Cross Plains are embarrassed of their most famous son. Some of the older residents demanded that more recognition be paid to Robert’s father, who was a doctor, and a pillar of the community. When the museum was being formed, one old lady said she, “couldn’t understand all the fuss being paid to that weird kid – his daddy was the doctor.”

The truth is, the people of Cross Plains thought he was soft and effete. It’s always easy – and a bad idea – to psychoanalyze authors, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that his interest in weight lifting and boxing was a reaction to his peers in Cross Plains. It could also be argued that the hyper-masculine character of Conan in particular, is also an exercise in wish fulfillment.

But apparently he was every bit the Mama’s Boy they said he was. After his mother died, he went to his driveway, and shot himself in the nice car he bought with the money he got from selling stories to Weird Tales. Thirty is a young age for any good author, most people don’t have anything to say worth reading in their twenties. It would be nice to read a mature Robert E. Howard, and tragically we will never know.

I suffer from Night Terrors, which is an unpleasant sleep disorder. I usually have one episode at least once a week. I’m about to be laid off from work this week, and so I feel that is acting as a “trigger” to these episodes. I’ve been having them almost every night.

It’s not a nightmare, but something different. There are no bad dreams to remember. It usually hits me in early sleep. Without any warning –and I realize this sounds absurd and looney — I will wake up screaming and terrified. I am breathing hard and hyperventilating and there is a distinct feeling of being smothered or choked. My ritual is to run to the bathroom sink and drink water. It feels like being awakened to your own murder. My wife is used to this by now, and will ask me if I’m okay, which I never answer, because I’m far from being okay.

The two most famous sufferers of this annoying disorder are horror author H.P. Lovecraft and the Swiss artist, H.R. Giger. Think about that for a minute. It doesn’t take a genius to see a connection with their work and their sleep problems.

I’m not sure what I can do about this. I have no desire to fiddle with my neurochemistry, which is one route. I guess I will endeavor to create happiness in my daily life, which will hopefully spill over into the other half of my life, the night.

The other day a friend and I were discussing –perhaps arguing, I’m often contentious– about Michael Moorcock’s essay and critique of J.R.R. Tolkein, Epic Pooh. It’s a famous and influential essay, well worth the read, where Moorcock compares Tolkein’s prose to that of A.A. Milne’s Winne-The-Pooh. In other words, it is fiction designed to comfort, not to challenge the reader

Moorcock also skewers the other grand patriarch of genre fiction, Robert Heinlein, with his essay, Starship Stormtroopers, where he argues that Heinlein’s books creepily fetishize the military and are intrinsically fascistic in nature. I still love Star Trek but I think Moorcock’s premise is right. Just why does most SF take place on military vessels full of good guys who never abuse their destructive power ? The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica deconstructed these themes.

Moorcock’s own Elric of Melinoboné books were the His Dark Materials / The Golden Compass of their day. They were intentionally opposite of what Moorcock perceived as the old-fashioned Tory values of Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. As a kid I never knew that any of the Elric books had a reactionary, anarchist agenda. I loved them, as much as I loved Tolkein, and would draw pictures of Elric and his Black Sword, a weapon far worse than the One True Ring.

But re-reading those essays, which are a little dated, I think they still contain valuable things to consider. Fantasy /SF and especially Star Wars fans should ponder the behavior of their cherished heroes.

From Starship Stormtroopers:

An anarchist is not a wild child, but a mature, realistic adult imposing laws upon the self and modifying them according to an experience of life, an interpretation of the world. A ‘rebel’, certainly, he or she does not assume ‘rebellious charm’ in order to placate authority (which is what the rebel heroes of all these genre stories do). There always comes the depressing point where Robin Hood doffs a respectful cap to King Richard, having clobbered the rival king. This sort of implicit paternalism is seen in high relief in the currently popular Star Wars series which also presents a somewhat disturbing anti-rationalism in its quasi-religious ‘Force’ which unites the Jedi Knights (are we back to Wellsian ’samurai’ again?) and upon whose power they can draw, like some holy brotherhood, some band of Knights Templar. Star Wars is a pure example of the genre (in that it is a compendium of other people’s ideas) in its implicit structure — quasi-children, fighting for a paternalistic authority, win through in the end and stand bashfully before the princess while medals are placed around their necks.

I was reminded of Michael Moorcock’s work after reading this interview with Richard K. Morgan, author of The Steel Remains

From the interview at io9.com

Why does fantasy lend itself to noir themes?
Well, I imagine there are many – not least among the core fantasy readership – who’d say it doesn’t; but then again those are the same people who can apparently read stories of noble warrior kings and peasants without ever thinking about the social implications of a world in which power is either hereditary or derived from brute force and steel. For me, any fiction of nobles and swords necessarily HAS to be a story of corruption, injustice and savagely violent conflict – because any other treatment is going to have all the heft and realistic honesty of a bedtime fairy tale for five year olds. Noir is above all an ADULT form. It’s a narrative technique which deals in the ubiquitous nature of humanity’s failings under pressure – and there are few places you’d see those failings so luridly played out as in the pre-modern societies so beloved of most epic fantasy. Forget Chandler’s nineteen thirties LA mean streets – what do you think the mean streets of your average feudal city state would have looked like? And what would you have to go through to extract some modicum of justice from that reeking mess?

I wouldn’t be surprised if we are witnessing a literary movement taking off. A fantasy movement that is cynical of any kind of noble quests. I’m excited about this direction.

My wife and I like to drive to small towns in Texas. A place I’ve never been to, but will probably go by the end of the year, is Cross Plains, TX. What’s there? Not one thing, except intense hay fever. However, it was the home of Texas writer, Robert E. Howard, the young creator of Conan the Barbarian, who lived there until his profound sadness caused him to commit suicide.

A biographical film about Robert E. Howard which I really like, that is unknown to most, and I really don’t know why, is The Whole Wide World. It is one of Renee Zelwegger’s earlier movies. It is about a small-town girl who falls for the town oddball, Bob Howard. She sees in him something fascinating and he is a bit of bright color in an otherwise bland Depression-era Texas town. In the film, he is depicted as a cry-baby mama’s boy, who despite his outward hyper-masculine posing, was actually a fragile soul. This is probably not dramatic license. He was too sensitive for his own good. He did try to kill himself after a favorite dog died, and finally managed to take his final exit after his mother died.

To do this road trip, I think I’m going to have to re-read the Conan novels. When I was a kid, obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons, I really liked those, but I never thought they were as good as the covers by Frank Frazetta. I’m also a fan of the first movie, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which has a great script by Oliver Stone and an even better orchestral soundtrack by Basil Poledouris.

My favorite Robert E. Howard writing is also his least read. He wrote fan letters to H.P. Lovecraft, and Lovecraft was kind enough to write back and give the youthful writer some criticism and praise. Lovecraft also had a kind of ‘open source’ approach to the so-called ‘Cthulhu Mythos’, a term Lovecraft never used. Lovecraft encouraged other pulp writers to use his characters and dead alien gods. Lovecraft also encouraged a young Fritz Leiber who is hand’s down my favorite pulp writer. I think Robert E. Howard does a better job of writing Cthulhu stories than his Conan and sword and sorcery stuff.